Mental Health Week begins on October 7th, 2018. To celebrate, we are sharing a series of articles by seven different writers each of whom have chosen a verb that for them, relates to mental health. We’re calling this series ‘Doing Mental Health’ and you can look forward to reading ‘to Talk’ ‘to Be’ ‘to Self-Care’ ‘to Change’ ‘to Permit’ ’to Speak’ and ‘to Balance’. You’ll find one new article every day of Mental Health Week and we hope you enjoy each and every one. Thank you to The Glitter Bug's Bianca Sciessere for writing for us about self-care and self-love.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein

In June of 2016, I learned that an enemy ship had fired torpedoes into my side. One torpedo took the form of chest pains that send me to the emergency room. The tests showed a strong heart, but the cardiologist wanted me to have my gallbladder checked.

This week, we received a response to our article Diabetes: An Introduction by one of our readers who was happy for us to share her comments with all of you. We welcome you to write to us about anything and everything and if you think it might help someone else, we'll post it on here. Thank you so much for reading our articles and being willing to have these conversations - human to human.

Worldwide, obesity has doubled since 1980. In 2014 the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that 1.9 billion adults were overweight with 600 million of those being obese. Obesity kills more people per year than being underweight and it is preventable. Bariatric surgery - weight loss surgery - are surgical methods to help people achieve weight loss. This year, Texan writer Rocky Hatley underwent surgery to achieve weight loss. As at the time of posting, Rocky has lost 42.18kg (93 pounds)!
He's written a three part Up Close & Personal account of his journey for us. You can find Part I here and Part II here. This is the third and final part. Thank you Rocky for sharing this unique personal insight into your experiences.

Worldwide, obesity has doubled since 1980. In 2014 the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that 1.9 billion adults were overweight with 600 million of those being obese. Obesity kills more people per year than being underweight and it is preventable. Bariatric surgery - weight loss surgery - are surgical methods to help people achieve weightloss. This year, Texan writer Rocky Hatley underwent surgery to achieve weightloss. He's written a three part Up Close & Personal account of his journey for us. This is the second part. Read Part I here and Part III here. Thank you Rocky for sharing this unique personal insight into your experiences.

According to Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA), one in seven new mothers and one in ten new fathers experiences postnatal depression or anxiety. In this latest Up Close & Personal essay, Diana Kirk shares with us her intimate experience with postnatal depression following the birth of her first son.

We've been so blessed to receive some valuable feedback and advice from all of you from our website survey. One of the most wonderful suggestions and one of the easiest to implement is the introduction of our new Monthly Mental Health Mailbox segment!

Have you ever faced difficulties in your job because of your gender? Have you ever had to work harder to prove yourself in your role simply because of your sex? Unfortunately people encounter discrimination everyday for many reasons, including their gender. Guest writer Diana Kirk let's us into her world owning and operating a company in the male dominated real-estate industry where sadly, even in 2017 misogyny is alive and well.

I first met Lisbeth several years ago in The Literary Kitchen where we were both writing students of American author, Ariel Gore. We reunited two weeks ago back in the Kitchen in a Personal Essay Intensive class. This very personal essay about Lisbeth's experiences living with and managing bipolar affective disorder and symptoms of psychosis lept from the computer at me and I begged her to share it with us at The Psychology of It. We're so grateful she did.